^{Picture: Geraint Lewis} 

It’s one of the few things we excel at,’ says Irvine Welsh of a proud Scottish tradition. But what is he referring to: great music? Never electing a Tory government? Snooker players? Not quite. ‘We’ve exported the term “cunt” as a genuine compliment. I think it’s something to do with the bad weather or the gallows humour due to this weird status we have politically within this fag-end of a crumbling empire. It breeds this dark humour and that transfers well to drama, no question about it.’

It’s almost 30 years since the sweary and sweaty Trainspotting put a firecracker straight up the literary establishment (resignations were threatened when it landed a place on the 1993 Booker longlist), with a later cult stage play by Harry Gibson and two box-office busting films from Danny Boyle making sure that Welsh’s iconic novel has become much more than a one-decade wonder. 

Back at the Fringe again before heading out on a UK tour, Trainspotting Live is an up-close and visceral experience which starts with a 15-minute rave before taking its audience on a scary ride into oblivion (it seems almost too ideal that the theatre company producing the play is called In Your Face). Not for nothing (asides from the great headlines) has Welsh dubbed this stage version as better than the 1996 film or, indeed, the original source material. 

‘What I meant, in a way, is that the ideal entry point to the work is through this live version which really engages with audiences who are so close to the action. It’s mixed up the whole Trainspotting thing with the spirit of rave; I was mad into rave at the time of writing the book and I wanted to capture the energy that I felt from that onto the page. This is the true realisation of it which is why it has always excited me as a show.’ 

^{Picture: Geraint Lewis} 

Greg Esplin was only one year old when Trainspotting was published. By the time he was at secondary school in Falkirk, he’d read the book a couple of times and written an English essay on it. And now he’s the co-director and key actor of this 75-minute production (performed twice a day no less). ‘It’s structured to be like drugs,’ he notes. ‘At first it’s fun, a rollercoaster look at what a good time we’re having. Then there’s a pivotal scene where Tommy stops the guy beating up his girlfriend and the play then just crashes. It’s like a comedown.’

Esplin takes on the role of Tommy who here is the moral compass: first solid and pointing the right way but soon going wildly off-grid before completely losing his direction. For fans of the original works, there might be some disgruntlement that the beloved Spud is not in the cast; but he’s integral to the play’s DNA. ‘Spud is split between Renton and Tommy,’ explains Esplin. ‘Renton wakes up covered in his own mess and Tommy gets the interview scene. It’s about those two characters but they embody the innocence of Spud; he’s definitely there in spirit if not in name.’

For the man who conjured up these characters, he’s not sure he’ll ever return to them, but insists their status has evolved in his mind. ‘Then, they all seemed to be rebels,’ Welsh says. ‘But now they’re not really; they’re like the rest of us. We’re all on the fringes of capitalism and trying to get by, making money from the dregs of a decaying system.’

Trainspotting Live, Pleasance At EICC, 4–28 August, 6pm, 9pm.